Good morning. 🎙️ Tomorrow on The Byers Market Podcast, New York Times media columnist Ben Smith and I talk about journalism in the time of coronavirus, from Facebook to Fox News. Plus: The art of media reporting and the state of digital media.

🎧 That's live tomorrow at 6 a.m. ET.

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Future of Media

Jeffrey Katzenberg showed me Quibi. Here are my thoughts.

Moving the Market: Jeffrey Katzenberg is two weeks away from launching Quibi, the highly anticipated streaming service that will feature five- to 10-minute episodes of slickly produced, celebrity-studded shows that can only be watched on a mobile device. Days before the coronavirus pandemic forced us all to stay home, he invited me to watch episodes of more than a dozen Quibi shows, amounting to more than two hours of content.

• First, a disclaimer: NBCUniversal (parent company of NBC News) is a minority investor in Quibi and NBC News will produce a daily news show for the platform. But lest you think I'm biased, I'd note that my skepticism of Quibi has inspired Katzenberg to call me a "doubting m*********r," and just last month I said that I was "ready to bet against it." So I've been rather bearish.

The big picture: After watching two hours of Quibi content, I have greater appreciation for the audacity of Katzenberg's effort. He is laying the groundwork for a new form of storytelling, especially in the scripted space. The video quality is excellent, and though I almost never felt compelled to use it, the technology that allows you to rotate between portrait and landscape mode is impressive.

• All that said, my skepticism about Quibi persists. In all the content I saw — 14 of the 50 shows that Quibi will debut at launch on April 6 — I didn't see enough unique or innovative programming to convince me that a critical mass of people would spend $4.99 a month (or $7.99 without ads) to sign up for the service. I also didn't see an obvious hit, which could be crucial to Quibi's success.

The play: Quibi offers television-caliber content (some of it feels like HBO, some of it feels like HGTV), but it isn't competing with television or even other streaming services. It's competing with YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and all the other apps you go to when you have five or 10 minutes of free time. This is perhaps the riskiest aspect of Katzenberg's bet: Quibi challenges people to change the way they behave with their smartphones.

• In the scripted space — dramas and thrillers like "Survive" and "The Stranger" — Katzenberg is asking consumers who habitually scroll and swipe through user-generated content to sit still for ten-minute segments of programming (or "movies in chapters") that they're more accustomed to watching for hours at a time on HBO or Netflix.

• In the unscripted space — a reboot of MTV's "Punk'd," an informal game show celebrating LGBTQ+ culture, a food-travel series about pasta — he is asking consumers to watch shorter versions of the (largely frivolous) reality television they usually watch at a remove, scrolling through their phones while it's on in the background.

• Finally, there are the daily essentials — news programs from NBC News and the BBC, sports highlights from ESPN. I'm sorry to say those weren't included in what I got to watch. But in order for those to work, they will have to provide value beyond the news and sports content that is readily available for free online.

The bottom line: This programming isn't fundamentally different from what's readily available elsewhere, in my opinion. It's just shorter and broken up into smaller segments. And the five- to 10-minute format, the vertical-horizontal viewing — all of this feels like bells and whistles on content that is actually quite familiar and not necessarily better than what you might find on Netflix or Bravo.

• At the end of the day, the bells and whistles won't matter. What will matter is the quality of the content. As Barry Diller told me last month, Katzenberg's "great hope" is "that somewhere in [Quibi's library] there is going to be a giant hit... There is going to be something that makes people say, 'Oh, my God, I've got to see it.'" I didn't see that hit. But again, I didn't see everything.

What's next: My sincere hope is that Quibi succeeds, primarily because I'm excited to see how people experiment with the form over time. New formats always have the potential to revolutionize how we think about storytelling, but it often takes time. HBO launched in the 1970s; it didn't create The Sopranos until 1999.

• I suspect people will pass judgment on Quibi much more quickly. The service is free for 90 days. On the 91st day, Katzenberg should have a very clear understanding of whether or not his bet paid off.

📱 Quibi-Quarantined 📱

Quibi chief Meg Whitman recently told staff "that awareness of the new service was relatively low, which could be a problem when the service launches in April," The Information's Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel report.

• The coronavirus pandemic may not help, since Quibi is designed for life on the go. Then again, as I wrote yesterday, there are a lot of people at home right now with a lot of time on their hands.

Mandel Ngan/Getty

Brave New World

Did COVID end the Tech Lash?

Big in the Bay: "While the rest of the economy is tanking from the crippling impact of the coronavirus, business at the biggest technology companies is holding steady — even thriving," NYT's Daisuke Wakabayashi, Jack Nicas, Steve Lohr and Mike Isaac report.

• The big picture: "With people told to work from home and stay away from others, the pandemic has deepened reliance on services from the technology industry’s biggest companies while accelerating trends that were already benefiting them."

The latest: "Amazon said it was hiring 100,000 warehouse workers to meet surging demand... Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said traffic for video calling and messaging had exploded... Microsoft said the numbers using its software for online collaboration had climbed nearly 40 percent in a week. ... Netflix and YouTube are gaining a new audience."

• But: "Beyond the biggest companies, it is more of a struggle. Communication tools like the videoconferencing service Zoom are now essential, but ride-hailing firms like Uber and Lyft and property-rental sites like Airbnb are seeing customers vanish."

What's next: "When the economy does eventually improve, Big Tech could benefit from changes in consumer habits. And despite more than 18 months of criticism from lawmakers, regulators and competitors before the pandemic hit the United States, the biggest companies are likely to finish the year stronger than ever."

• Bonus: The coronavirus has also revived Facebook as a news powerhouse, NYT's Kevin Roose and Gabriel J.X. Dance write. "More than half of all news consumption on Facebook in America is about the virus, according to an internal report."

Market Links

• Jack Dorsey warns of a big hit to Twitter's ad revenue (CNBC)

• Jeff Bezos offers free streaming for children's shows (Variety)

• Kerry Trainor leads SoundCloud-Twitch partnership (Verge)

• Mark Thompson brings Audm audio app to the NYT (TC)

• Jay Sures and UTA heads forego their 2020 salaries (THR)

Wang Zhao/Getty

Silver Screen Test

China slowly reopens cinemas

Talk of Tinseltown: The Chinese government is letting some movie theaters reopen as the number of new coronavirus cases has dropped, "a bright spot at a time when nearly all the rest of the world's cinemas are dark," NPR's Bob Mondello writes.

• Roughly 500 theaters, less than 5 percent of the total, have now reopened with limited attendance.

What's next: "This first wave of openings is mostly to test the water with audiences. The hope is that as Chinese patrons become more comfortable with going out, more theaters can open in April."

Bloomberg/Getty

🥇 Tokyo Watch

Jeff Shell awaits Olympics call

Talk of TV Land: NBCUniversal is bracing for a final decision on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo after a series of developments on Monday that seemed to indicate a likely delay of the games until at least 2021.

• The big picture: The delay would be at least a temporary blow to NBCUniversal, which paid $4.38 billion for U.S. media rights to the four Olympics between 2014 and 2020 (and another $7.75 billion for rights to the Olympics through 2032).

• NBC has sold at least $1.25 billion in advertising for the 2020 games, setting a record for Olympic ad sales.

The latest: Team USA's Olympic and Paralympic Committee has urged the International Olympic Committee to postpone the games. This comes after Canada and Australia said they would not send athletes this year.

• Meanwhile, in an interview with USA Today, IOC member Dick Pound said the games would be delayed and likely moved to 2021. Neither the IOC nor the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee made that official.

NBC Statement: “These are extraordinary and unprecedented times, and we fully support the IOC’s decision to step up its scenario-planning for the Tokyo Olympics," an NBC Sports spokesperson said.

• "We are prepared to stand behind any decision made by the IOC, the Japanese government, and the world health officials with whom they are working regarding the Tokyo Olympics."

NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC News.

🏊 What's next: The Ringer's Rodger Sherman explains why the IOC has so far refused to accept the inevitable about the Olympics.

See you tomorrow.